


The King of Thieves

by foux_dogue



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Bandits & Outlaws, F/M, First Ganondorf, First Link, First Zelda, Mentions of sexual violence, Origin Myths, Pining, Pre-Hyrule, Religion, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 20:47:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20748497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foux_dogue/pseuds/foux_dogue
Summary: History is written by the victors.The truth of the past, however, is often far more complicated — especially when vengeful gods are involved. So what was it, really, that first drew the bearers of the Triforce together?As it so happened, it started as most tragic stories do: with a man and woman both desperate for something forbidden to them.





	The King of Thieves

**Author's Note:**

> This work is a standalone prequel to [Glass Flowers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19849168), which features a far-future version of the characters involved in the following fic. Both stories can be read exclusive of one another, but hopefully when read together they add some depth and context to the overarching theme of just how tricky reincarnation can be! (Please note that chapter 15 of Glass Flowers does contain a high-level spoiler for this story... as generally happens when one looks back on the past).

He and Felex sat together on the wall and watched the parade of silver-shrouded women pass. All of it was a coincidence — that their hunger had peaked just as the farmer’s wife had begun to cleave a pile of durian fruit into fragrant quarters that had lured them in with their putrid sweetness; and that they had chosen to sit on the sun-warmed stones of the ancient walls ringing the city just when the morning prayers had ended. Felex had heard the bells first, his eyes darting to the parting crowds.

“Look,” he’d said. Ganon had ignored him at first, too busy scraping the flesh from the horny skin of his breakfast to bother with whatever whore or tomcat that’d distracted his companion. Felex had lashed out at him, then, flailing an open fist in his direction as he gestured towards the approaching ensemble with his free hand. “What’s that?”

Ganon glanced between his knees to eye the rabble below them. Sure enough, there was something there — a man, first, crowned in a tall hat and swinging something that left a thick smoke in its wake. Some of the market-goers had knelt a shoulder’s distance away from him; others, heads bowed, reached out with flat-palmed hands. Twelve sentinels followed behind him, clad in shimmering robes that draped them from head to toe. A ring of tiny bells was strung around the veiled circles of their brows and tinkled cheerfully as they stepped. Each one of them had a hand — he supposed it was a hand, although their sleeves were long enough to hide any hint of fingers — on a rope strung with bells as well. Like a group of sailors ready to lash a sail, he thought, amused; or girls dancing around a maypole; or beasts collared to a chain.

The city was new to them. The corps — Felex liked to call it that, having learned the word from some drunken conversation in a tavern that had left him feeling clever, although _band_ was a far better word, them being bandits, after all — had stumbled onto the place only three evenings before. The streets were narrow and meandering in a way that suggested it had been there for a very long time. Old cities had old customs, so it was easy enough to guess just what the spectacle was.

“People from a temple,” he wagered aloud.

“Priests?”

“Hm,” Ganon replied. “Give me that if you aren’t going to eat it.”

“Let’s go watch.”

“Watch what?” Felex waved his hand at the crowd as it parted further to leave a bald circle at the center of the market. The silver herd filed into the space. The drone of the market’sbartering and hawking had quieted into a murmur dominated by their tinkling bells.

It wasn’t a bad idea. With the audience’s eyes settled on whatever it was those strange creatures meant to do next, it would be easy for him and Felex to slip their fingers into unguarded pockets. Still, his side freshly bandaged and aching from the last brawl he’d been lured into, Ganon was less than enthusiastic about abandoning his post.

“Later,” he argued as he snatched Felex’s portion of half-eaten durian and scooped his fingers into the creamy flesh. “I’m hungry.”

“You’re going to be more than hungry if you don’t pay your dues soon,” Felex countered with a cock of his brow. “The boss is going to cut off your thumbs, you know?”

“What do I need thumbs for?”

“You’re a real stupid bastard, Ganon.” He shrugged. Felex sighed and snatched his sleeve. “Come on. This will be easy — even for someone like you.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” He relented all the same, huffing out a groan as he tossed the rest of their meal aside and followed the shorter man as he scaled down the wall. Ganon suspected that Felex was simply taking advantage of his newly broken ribs to force himself into the lead role. The task usually fell to Ganon — quicker and stronger than his brother-at-arms, and cleverer as well (or at least arrogant enough to make the claim). Now, however, he was the one gasping for breath and following at Felex’s heels as they threaded their way through the crowd.

_Enjoy it while you can, you snake_, he thought dryly as he watched Felex’s nimble fingers begin to slip between elbows and arms.

Not that Felex had been entirely wrong. Ganon was a good thief — a great one, if one could claim greatness in that sort of thing — but he was also lazy and entirely self-serving. Why share a fat portion of his winnings with the hoary old clan leader when he could pocket them all himself? Dues meant nothing to him, especially when all they earned him was a spot sleeping on the ground and the occasional skin of watery wine when his compatriots gathered after a raid to celebrate their victory — but, he didn’t want to have his fingers lopped off, either, and even he wasn’t stubborn enough to argue against the strength of numbers. After all, that’s why he’d joined the bandits in the first place.

So he cocked his wrist so that the thin-bladed knife hidden in the seam of his sleeve fell into his palm and began his dutiful work of slashing pockets and bags. It was boring. He preferred a more colorful approach — riling crowds into a panic so that he could steal from tills,not simply customers, or rustling a fattened herd with the jaws of some shepherd’s dogs snapping at his heels. Felex said that his style was likely to get him killed, but it had also garnered him some notoriety and, quite frankly, he wasn’t opposed to dying young as long as he left a few good stories behind.

“A dance! A dance!”

“Here, bring the apples — quickly now, bring them to the priest.”

“The goddess is generous to us today!”

He faltered as someone shoved a tithing plate into his hands. A smirk leapt onto his lips as he tipped it neatly into his pockets as well. Maybe Felex had made the mistake of being clever that day, after all.

The crowd hushed into a whisper. No bells, either, he realized. The sudden silence forced him still as well. It would do him no good for the red-nosed man at his side to hear the clatter of coins as he pilfered him poor. His smirk turned into a stubborn frown as he peeked between the sea of shoulders to see just what it was that had left them bewitched.

The twelve silver robes had arranged themselves into a circle. Their bells chimed again as they started to twirl. They spun like tops, their long hems billowing into the air, and all of them rooted in their spots except for one that skated forward like a dragonfly skirting a still pond. This one had magicked a strip of golden silk from somewhere. It snapped and curled in the air as the silver figure danced. Not that it was like any dance he’d seen before — there was no beat of music for the figure to match other than the constant chime of the bells, and he’d never seen a dancer hidden behind so much cloth before.

It must have been a woman, the way the people were murmuring at his side, but nothing about their figure made it obvious. To his eye, they were simply a silver shape bending and twisting just like the scrap of gold above their head. Like a flag, he thought absentmindedly; or like a banner, and stirring the same feeling alive in his chest that he felt when he rose a banner for victory himself on a battlefield, his blood hot and hungry for the bounty his reckless courage had earned.

“Have you finished?” Felex whispered the question, his lips nearly brushing his ear. “Let’s leave.”

“No,” Ganon answered, loud enough that a plump woman at his elbow glared up at him for breaking their reverence, “I want to watch.”

“What? Why?” Felex’s face screwed into an annoyed shape. “You were the one who — what is it? What’s that look for?” He’d always been able to read him well. Not that Ganon ever endeavored to be mysterious, really; but, rather, that when one spent enough time beside another man, it was natural that their thoughts would begin to blend.

“There.” He nodded towards the circle, his voice hushed again.

“There what?”

“I want that.”

“What? Bells? What the hell are you going to do with bells?”

“Not the bells,” Ganon snapped dryly, grasping Felex’s pointed chin between his fingers and shoving him forward. “That.” His eyes settled again on the wisps of silver and gold shivering at the center of the circle. “I’m going to take it.” He felt Felex stiffen. _A bad idea_, he told him without speaking.

Good. Ganon smiled. That was the type of idea that he preferred.

* * *

His skin was nearly black with bruise from the spot where his arm joined to his shoulder all the way down to the rise of his hip bone. He touched at it tenderly and hissed.

“Let me bind it. You’re not doing it tight enough.” 

“I’m doing it tight enough,” he growled back at her, groping for the strips of boiled cloth he’d prepared the night before.

“You don’t know shit, boy.” Aeva usually wasn’t so bitter with him. He glanced up at her. She’d installed herself across the pile of mismatched pillows that formed his bed, her long limbs sprawled without the pretense of any type of pose and her face full of fire. He hadn’t seen her that angry since he’d made the mistake of sleeping with her, some time before, and then the catastrophic misstep of seeking out some other girl afterwards without groveling beforehand.

It had cost him two horses and six months of watch duty to win her favor back. At least he had been successful, he thought to himself as he watched her glower; for her to worry about him like that now must have meant that she had at least relented to become his friend again. If he hadn’t been such a fool he would have thanked her for it, his friendships being in such short supply; but, then again, very little of his life would have happened the way it had if he hadn’t been a fool.

“How did you manage that, anyway? We had to leave because of you, you know.”

“I didn’t do anything.” He winced as he pressed one end of the snaking cloth to his side and began to wind it around his chest. “I was just playing a game of dice.”

“With the alderman?” Ganon grunted.

“I don’t know. Looked like a drunk to me.”

“With the alderman.”

“Alright, with the alderman. What of it?” Aeva smirked.

“And with weighted dice.”

“I don’t know anything about that.” He ignored her as she stood from her spot to slink towards him with a silent step. Everything about her was silent. He supposed that was why she was such a good thief. Better than him, even, maybe, although he’d never admit something like that aloud.

“You’re a cheat, Ganon,” she told him, her eyes sparking with something he didn’t find entirely unappealing. He flinched as she stubbed her toes against his bruised chest. “Everything you do is weighted.” He slapped her foot away.

“Better weighted than poisoned.” She shrugged. They both turned as Felex folded the flap of Ganon’s tent open with his elbow and crouched inside.

“Are you finally going to kill him?” Felex glanced between them with a flat look. “By all means, don’t let me interrupt.”

“What have you bullied him into doing now, eh?” Ganon rolled his eyes at her. She did have a sharp nose, didn’t she? Perhaps he needed to recruit fresh blood into his inner circle less familiar with his schemes.

“He didn’t bully me into doing anything,” Felex contended. His reiterated his point by extending a palm in Ganon’s direction. Ganon sighed and, groaning, leaned sideways to hunt out a little leather bag bulging with coin. He tossed it at him with a quick flick of his wrist.

“So?”

“So,” Felex answered him as he weighed the bag, “I’ve learned quite a bit. And let me be the first to formally welcome you to the Land of the Gods.”

“Eh?” Felex’s theatric bow was enough to make Ganon pause. “The Land of _what_?”

“It’s what they call this place,” Felex continued as he stepped forward to snatch a pillow from the corner and fluffed it into an acceptable perch. He peered up at the pitched ceiling next and frowned. “Why is it, by the way, that your tent is so much larger than mine?”

“Because you’re useless,” Ganon quipped. Felex pouted.

“Fine. If I’m so useless, then no need for me to continue.”

“Hey,” Ganon barked, “I paid, didn’t I? Keep on with that and you’ll owe me a thumb of your own.” Felex shrugged.

“No need to be so nasty. I’m a man of my word.” It was Aeva’s turn to smirk. Yes, Ganon thought with a grin of his own, and what was that old saying about honor and thieves?

“Those dancers we saw today,” Felex continued on with less enthusiasm, “were priestesses, just like you’d guessed. The people here keep faith over a goddess. They’re very serious about it, from what I gathered. I’ve told the boss as well. It seems like they’re the sort that likes to burn particularly nosy non-believers, yeah?” Ganon waved away the warning.

“That lot generally is. Priest_esses_, right? So they were women.”

“Yes,” Felex answered, glancing over at Aeva with a roll of his eyes. “Lucky you, I suppose. But they aren’t just priestesses. The people say that they are daughters of the goddess.”

“Do they have a god as well?”

“None that I’ve heard of.”

“So just some lucky priest then, eh, to sire so many daughters?”

“It seems that way to me. The priestesses are brought up in the temple from a young age. It’s only the lot of them — the twelve we saw today. Most of the time they pray in secret, but it appears that from time to time they’ll come out to collect tithes as well.”

“Clever enough. And those outfits of theirs?”

“Surely that isn’t too much of a mystery. No one can look at them. Purity, that sort of thing.”

“Right. Why do I have the feeling that there’s no old crones under those sheets of theirs, pure or otherwise?”

“You didn’t pay me enough to ask that sort of question.”

“And how much would you like to wager that the priests have had a proper eyeful themselves?”

“Not nearly enough,” Felex reiterated with a smirk.

“You never are a bargain, are you? Alright. So did you find the temple, then?”

“Yes. It isn’t much to look at, really — some ancient place at the center of the city, all covered in vines. I can draw you a map if you need it, and for a very reasonable price.”

“What are you planning to do?” Aeva’s voice cut between them. It was full of venom.

“Nothing,” Ganon replied innocently, flashing his palms at her. “I was just curious.”

“You’re never curious about anything you don’t mean to eat,” she snarked, crouching so that her nose nearly brushed against his own. “Don’t put your fingers into a temple, Ganon. That sort of thing never ends well. The boss won’t back you to sack a holy house.”

“The boss has no imagination.”

“And you don’t have the balls to say something like that to his face.”

“Yet you call me a stupid man,” he retorted. She huffed and sunk back onto her heels.

“You’d be stupid to try anything looking like that. You can barely stand. It’s terrible timing, by the way. The boss wants us to make a run on Shiever’s boys down by the coast. He’ll be pissed that you’ve turned yourself into a washerwoman again.”

“I can fight if I need to,” he promised her stonily. “You want to test me?” She laughed.

“I know you better than that. No doubt you’d drag us both to hell if you had the chance.” She clapped her hands against her thighs and stood. “In any case, leave those poor girls alone. I’m sure they’re miserable enough as it is without you stealing their underclothes.”

“What? Under— what do you take me for, eh?” Aeva bowed under the thick oilcloth draped at the tent’s entry. “Hey!”

“A criminal!” She barked the word over the shoulder as she left the two men behind.

“Pfft,” Ganon grumbled under his breath. He pulled the cloth bandage taut, his teeth grinding in his jaw. “A criminal. And who’s not?”

* * *

Ganon found the temple without the aid of Felex’s overpriced map. To be fair, a blind man could have managed it. It wasn’t large or terribly grand, just like his companion had said, but all of the city’s ancient streets seemed to lead to its threshold. They gathered in a broad plaza decorated with a line of statues featuring the same ample-bosomed woman draped in blooms. He imagined that the plaza was as busy as the market during the day, but now that the moon had risen in the sky he found himself alone. And better for it, he decided, for what he planned to do next.

_Don’t do it_, a ghost of Aeva’s voice chided him. He looked up at the thick ivy sprawled across the temple’s walls. Well, he wouldn’t be much of a thief if he listened to commands, now would he? He thumbed the dark bandana at his throat up over the bridge of his nose and reached forward to find a handhold. He’d do what he bloody well wanted to, thank you very much, and to hell with what they said — friend or boss or foe. They were all just wolves, at the end of the day, and all of them fighting over the same flock to devour. So what if, for once, he wanted to feed his curiosity instead of his greed?

It seemed like a very good idea — a gallant one, really, at least to his libertine perspective — until he’d found himself three stories higher and struggling to draw breath. So maybe he should have first waited until his damned ribs had fused together again. He hugged himself against the crumbling face of the wall and gulped for air. Better up than down, he insisted to himself as his eyes darted to the earth he’d left behind — and to climb up it rather than to tumble down and break what parts of him were still left whole.

“Guh.”

The final moments of his ascension were far more pitiful than the first. Still, his chest blazed with triumph as he swung his arm over the railing of a rooftop balcony and — groaning or otherwise — decided that he was truly a man of great means. He tumbled over the railing to collapse into a boneless heap.

“Yah!” A pitched cry filled his ears.

Perhaps he’d been _too_ successful.

“Hello there,” he wheezed as he eased himself up onto his elbows. Four girls were there to greet him, dressed in silver gowns and all of them sharing that wide-eyed, pudgy look that told him they’d yet to set sail from their childhood off into adolescence. _Just kids?_ A glum feeling seized him as he realized he’d made claim to an empty bounty.

“W-who are you?” One of them peeped the question as he struggled to his knees.

“I’m, eh...” His eyes darted across the balcony. It was well-appointed. There were fat-stuffed cushions everywhere, still dented from where the girls had once been sitting. Beside them small, delicate-legged tables were filled with orange-skinned fruits and grapes and melon quarters. The priestess’ late night treats were stacked on bronze platters. Well, he thought miserably, bronze, yes, that would have to do.

“A thief.” A bold voice steadied him as he made to rise to his feet. It wasn’t thin and warbling like the other girl’s but stern and rather deep, if a little too loud. He felt his lips pitch into a grin beneath the mask of his bandana as a woman emerged from behind a wooden screen. She was dressed in silver as well, but looked nothing like the others. To be honest she reminded him of Felex, with her hay-colored hair and snowy skin. The look favored her far better. “What do you want?”

“Was it you?” He asked her the question as he finally stood. He did his best to hide a wince as his ribs screamed out in protest. His fingers, planted against his hips in a feeble attempt to keep his back straight, trembled. “Earlier today, in the market? Dancing?”

“What do you want from us?” The woman stepped forward. She waved at the girls as she advanced. They huddled behind her, each taking grip of her long hem. “Even a man like you must know that it is a sin to steal from Hylia’s daughters.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m just a traveler taking in the sights.” She frowned. 

“And so you’ve seen us. Leave or I’ll call for the guards.” His head tipped sideways as he observed her; the way that she was gritting her jaw so tightly, the quick flicker of her eyes. It wasn’t that she was lying, he wagered, but there was something else to what she’d said.

“Why haven’t you called them already?” She pursed her lips but made no reply. _Ah._ So that was how it was, was it? What a cruel place this Land of the Gods was. “Is it because you’ll be punished, too? Is that why they cover you up like that?”

“Leave,” the woman insisted, suddenly missing the bite of her first order. He shrugged his shoulders.

“If you know what I am, you should know that I won’t go anywhere empty handed.” Her eyes narrowed as she stared back at him fiercely.

“...You’re hurt,” she managed after a beat. He laughed — more of a whistle than proper laughter, but to be honest he was relieved that he could breathe at all.

“Who said anything about being hurt?”

“If I heal you, will you leave without causing a scene?”

“What?” The girls cried out as she stepped forward towards him.

“Sister!”

“Quiet,” she hushed them, swatting them back with the wave of her hand before turning to face him again. “Is it a deal?” He snorted another round of laughter through his nose.

“Even if it’s something nasty?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she insisted icily. “Just that you’ve leave this place — alone, and without hurting anyone, as soon as I am done.” She was frightened. He could see her shoulders trembling. Still, there was something in her bitterness that made it impossible to refuse.

“Alright.”

“You’ve made a deal under Hylia’s eye,” the woman warned him. “I wouldn’t suggest that you break it.” He smirked.

“I don’t know any Hylia,” he insisted, spreading his arms to show that he was unarmed, “but that doesn’t mean I’m not a man of my word.” She did not seemed convinced, and yet still stepped closer towards him.

“What are you doing?” She hissed the question as he moved to unbutton his shirt.

“Er,” he sputtered, “it’s on my side.”

“I don’t need to see it!” Her cheeks flushed pink as she stormed forward and clapped her hands against his chest. “Just be quiet.” She smelled clean — like soap and lavender and something sweet. He imagined that he probably stank, himself. It almost made him feel guilty.

“Were you the one with the gold scarf?” He asked her the question under his breath. She glared up at him. Her eyes were blue. They were pretty, but there was nothing otherworldly about them. Was that really what goddesses were supposed to look like?

“Be quiet.” His own eyes started to water as he felt something warm weave between his aching ribs. For a moment he forgot all about her, his mind swamped by the bliss of not hurting instead. His chest filled with a deep and delicious breath.

“There,” she muttered, stepping back on her heel and gripping her fingers together. “It’s done.”

“Shit,” he breathed, running his hands over the spot that had once tortured him. “What a trick!”

“It’s not a trick!” She balled her fists at her side. “We had an agreement. Leave.” She flinched as he leaned towards her.

“Alright, fair enough.” He studied her for a moment longer. She had a look in her face that he recognized — something that told him that she wanted nothing more than to toss him from the roof herself. It made him grin. He hooked a finger under the edge of his bandana and tugged it to his chin. “I’ll be punished if I’m seen, too,” he told her with a wink. “So now we’re even, hm?”

A simple pleasure filled him as her cheeks flushed darker. He should have stayed to lecture her on the danger of gambling with the integrity of masked men crawling through windows in the night, but decided instead to simply honor their agreement. He waggled his fingers at the girls cowering in her wake before turning to sling his legs over the railing of the balcony. He disappeared far more deftly than he’d arrived.

* * *

“You’re looking rather pleased with yourself,” Felex drawled as they walked together through the city gates. Ganon yawned and rubbed his eyes. 

“When am I not pleased with myself?” Felex groaned.

“I don’t know why I still bother talking to you.”

“Yes,” Ganon continued with a grin, prodding at the man’s shoulder as they meandered towards the markets to hunt out something to break their fast. “Of course I’m pleased.”

“So what is it that you did last night? I honestly thought I’d be collecting your head today.” Felex’s face darkened. “You don’t have a warrant, do you? I’m not sitting in a cell again because of you.”

“A warrant?” Ganon laughed and slapped Felex’s back. “Hardly. You, my friend, are looking at a man who’s found his faith!”

“What,” Felex deadpanned. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Only that I witnessed a miracle, old man.” He fingered his side absentmindedly. “And let me tell you, it left me convinced.”

“You are a curse,” Felex sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t want to know, alright? Just keep it to yourself. But did you pay the boss, at least?”

“Yes,” Ganon snapped, depressed that his gloating had already come to an end. “I paid the fucking boss. And you as well, and now I don’t have a penny to my name.”

“Whose fault is that? You’re paid the same as the rest of us, and both of us know you’re skimming twice as much from everything else.”

“You can’t blame me for having rich tastes.”

“You have the taste of a glutton, but not a discerning one,” Felex grumped.

“Your vocabulary is getting better every day,” Ganon replied sharply with a roll of his eyes. “But this glutton is hungry, so buy me some bread.”

“Fuck off.” Felex bucked him with his shoulder. Ganon laughed, knowing that his breakfast was secure long before he’d even asked.

“Oi,” Felex continued, shoving Ganon again for good measure, “look there. They’re at it early today, aren’t they? Hey. Hey! Where are you going?” Ganon had already squeezed himself between the shoulders of two bleary-eyed shopkeepers in a beeline towards the ring of silver-shrouded priestesses.

They weren’t dancing that day but instead arranged in an arc across the market square. Each one was bowed before a bronze dish — and, behind that dish, a long line of city folk had already queued to bring them offerings.

“They’ve really figured this out, haven’t they?”

“Hm,” Ganon agreed distractedly. “I’m going over there.” He pointed at one of the silver figures set apart from the rest. Her line was the longest — nearly stretched to the gates.

“What? What about breakfast? I’m not going to wait in that line with you.” Felex sounded convincing, even as he sidled to Ganon’s side at the tail-end of the line. “What is wrong with you?”

“Eh?” Ganon looked over at him innocently. “You should be happy. I’ve turned over a new leaf. Pay the boss, pay the gods — it’s all the same, right?”

“Yeah,” Felex grumbled, “but I’m not worried that you’ll sleep with the boss.” Ganon nodded appreciatively.

“Probably not.” Felex groaned.

“You are such an idiot.”

The sun had nearly crested to the middle of the sky by the time they finally arrived in the plaza again. Felex had abandoned him twice to hunt out food, but something had drawn him back again — as it did, inevitably, no matter what mess Ganon found himself in. To his credit, Ganon had made no effort to sneak himself along the queue, nor had he even slipped his sticky fingers into any of the pockets of the devoted gathered a breath’s distance away.

It would have been better if he had, he thought, as he jammed his hands into his own empty pockets. He’d been honest when he’d bemoaned his financial situation to Felex earlier that morning — all he had to offer was two measly coins. He flipped them in his palm as the last devotee stepped forward towards the silver priestess waiting for them. He did his best to hide his grin as his turn came. The priestesses were all perfect statues hovering above their dishes, but he liked to imagine that the one he cornered now shivered slightly as he made his approach.

“Is that you in there?” He eyed the gold sash strung around her shoulders. “Or do you all... you know... share?” She didn’t answer him. He crouched before her and jangled the coins between his fingers. She shifted the dish away just as he moved to drop them in so that they clattered against the ground instead. He smiled.

“I think our trade was a little unfair,” he admitted to her next. “A retreat doesn’t mean much to me. Let me pay, too — it’s not a lot, but it’s all I’ve got.” He arched his brows into an apologetic shape. “I have a feeling those priests of yours and I have got a bit in common, but riches aren’t one of them.” The silver figure remained mute and still. “I’ll tell you my name, too. Will you tell me yours?” More silence. He laughed. “Ganon. People call me lots of things, but that’s the real one.” He stood.

“I bet you have a far prettier name than that. Or is it so bad you don’t want to tell me? I’m curious, you know?” She didn’t answer. That didn’t bother him. He was patient, too. Still, it made him grin again as he heard the coins clatter into the dish after he’d turned to rejoin Felex in the crowd.


End file.
